Careless Whisper
by Sultan Peppershaker
Summary: You can't love anyone until you understand that you can't love everyone.


**I'm back again with another one-shot. I know what you're all thinking: "What is this freak doing writing another story?" Well, just give me a chance and read it. Then you can start asking that question. Plus, I basically wrote this whole thing tonight, so cut me a little slack, huh?

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**

Twenty-three year old Phil Diffy sat in Keely Teslow's apartment room.

"So," he mumbled, "you're just about done unpacking, then?"

"Yeah," Keely replied giddily. "It's so great to be back where the weather is reasonable year-round."

"It is nice," Phil confirmed. "How you ever survived in New Jersey is a mystery to me…"

"It wasn't easy," Keely said, "but I made it through. Four long, hard years of work, but it was well worth it."

"Are you keeping in touch with anyone back there?" he asked.

"Yeah, I met this girl named Juliet. She's really nice. Brunette, British, really intelligent. She was my roommate back at Salerno," Keely replied.

"How did you like Salerno?"

"It was a great school," Keely replied. "Amazing all around. Great athletic program, the instructors were awesome… I loved it."

"That's great to hear, Keely," Phil said, looking out the window. Strangely enough, it was snowing. It was winter, still, but it was also California. Phil watched the snow pile up. It must have been at least two inches deep, a snowfall neither of them knew was possible in California.

Keely leaned against Phil, warming herself up. He put his arm around her shoulder, and she smiled, as she watched the snow fall onto the fire escape railing.

The two of them sat in silence for a while, their thoughts miles away from the snow hitting the ground. Keely sat up and looked over at Phil. When he looked at her, she did something incredibly bold, but also possibly incredibly foolish, and kissed him. He didn't pull away, and so she got a bit more into the kiss.

When she pulled away, she whispered, "Oh Phil… I've always wondered why I never told you this before… I love you…"

Phil didn't respond.

_**Baby we can talk all night  
But that ain't getting us nowhere  
I've told you everything I possibly can  
There's nothing left inside of here**_

His eyes just glossed over as he looked out the window.

"Phil?" Keely asked. "Is everything okay?"

Again, she didn't get a response from him. He stood up, and walked to the window. He reached up and put his hand on the cold glass, gazing out at the white covering the streets in a thin layer. Then, he sighed, and dropped his hand, leaving an imprint on the window.

Keely slowly stood up, and walked over to Phil. She gingerly placed a hand on his shoulder, afraid that he might snap at her. He didn't, though, and she loosened up a bit. "Phil," she murmured, "if something is bothering you, you know you can tell me…"

He sighed, and looked at Keely. The only light on her came from the window- the lights were out, due to the snow. In her eyes stood two small reflections of the orange streetlight across the road.

"Now, please, Phil… tell me what's bothering you…"

Phil sighed again, looking out into the gloomy night. "It's a long story," he muttered.

"I've got time…"

He just shook his head, rubbing his temples. "I don't even know if I'm up to telling it…"

"It might help you, you know… if you tell me. It might make you feel better… being able to get it off your chest…"

"It's… not that simple, Keely," he replied, walking across the room.

"Phil… please… don't shut me out."

He stopped, and turned around, looking her in the eye.

"Just tell me, Phil… please… for me…"

_**And maybe you can cry all night  
But that'll never change the way that I feel  
The snow is really piling up outside  
I wish you wouldn't make me leave here**_

He sighed, looking into Keely's pleading eyes. "Phil," she whispered, "don't shut me out…"

"I don't really know if I feel like telling you this, Keely…"

"Why not? You've always told me everything about yourself… why are you shutting me out now?"

Phil couldn't argue that Keely had a point there. He'd always told her things in the strictest confidence that he wouldn't let anybody else know. She was the person he could always trust… the girl he could tell most everything…

What was the big difference in telling her one more thing?

Well, Phil could see a difference. A big difference.

But… he couldn't just stop trusting her now… she could handle listening to this.

"Keely… you're beautiful. You're funny… you're amazing, really. I always dreamed of meeting somebody like you… Somebody to call my own. You're everything I've always wanted… and…" Phil swallowed, and pressed on.

_**I poured it on and I poured it out  
I tried to show you just how much I care  
I'm tired of words and I'm too hoarse to shout  
But you've been cold to me so long  
I'm crying icicles instead of tears**_

"And that's what makes this so hard to say," he continued. The hopeful smile on Keely's face fell off, and the pit of her stomach sunk like a stone. "I… you're amazing… you're everything a guy could want. But… I… I don't love you…"

Keely's lip trembled and her eyes began to water. She wanted to ask him why, to beg for an explanation why he felt the way he did, but found that her voice wasn't making a sound.

"I… I know it doesn't make any sense… but it's not you, Keely. It's not you…" Phil sighed, and began to walk to the door. Keely ran to the door to stop him from leaving. "Please… Keely…"

"Phil," she squeaked out, "I… don't understand…"

"I don't expect you to," he replied.

"But I want to… I want to know…"

Phil, for the briefest moment, wanted to tell her that was too bad, that he wasn't going to tell her… he looked into her sad eyes, and sighed. He couldn't do this… not to her. He couldn't.

"I suppose the least I could do is give you an explanation," he muttered. She nodded, and he walked to the couch, and sat down. She sat on the other side, looking at him.

"I guess I'll start off from when you left… after you went to fly off to Salerno…" He sighed, and looked up at Keely. He really didn't want to relive this, but he felt obligated to tell her.

_**And all I can do is keep on telling you  
I want you  
I need you  
But there ain't no way I'm ever gonna love you  
Now don't be sad  
'Cause two out of three ain't bad  
Now don't be sad  
'Cause two out of three ain't bad**_

_Phil sighed as he watched the plane fly off into the air, the moonlit wings reflecting the light that guided her away from him. "Goodbye, Keely," Phil said one last time, as the plane quickly disappeared from his view._

_Phil drove back to his apartment, and wasn't surprised to see Owen still up, watching an episode of _Fresh Prince of Bel-Air_ on Nick at Nite. "Hey, Philly-Cheese-Steak," Owen greeted him, nonchalantly, as he threw his keys on the table._

"_Hey, Owen," Phil returned, a little dejected._

"_You okay there, man?" Owen asked, noticing Phil's tone._

"_Yeah, I'm fine… just upset is all…"_

"_Come on, man," Owen said. "You can get over her…"_

"_I never doubted that… it's just… she knew me a lot… _better_ than anybody else does. It's hard to say goodbye to my best friend after so long…"_

"_Yeah… I remember when I had to move from Stony Brook to here… it was tough, man, but… I made it through. The O-dawg persevered."_

_Phil was a little surprised that such a long word was in Owen's vocabulary, but decided he probably learned it from Via, and shrugged. "Yeah, I'll get over it, but… things won't be the _same_, you know?"_

"_Yeah, I know what you're sayin'," Owen said, turning back to the TV._

_Phil nodded, sighed, and went to bed._

"It hadn't even been a day, but I was already sorely missing you," Phil said. "I mean… I knew it was going to be hard… we'd been best friends for about five years… it wouldn't be easy for anybody to just say goodbye to their best friend… I just never knew how hard it was going to be…"

_He woke up the next morning, rubbing his eyes. Of course, the first conscious thought to pop into his mind was, _Keely's gone…

"I mean, I was miserable already…" Phil told her. "I would stay up late every night, thinking about you… I asked myself all sorts of questions that I could never answer… it was torture…"

_**You'll never find your gold on a sandy beach  
You'll never drill for oil on a city street  
I know you're looking for a ruby in a mountain of rocks  
But there ain't no Coupe de Ville  
Hiding at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box**_

"I… I started to wonder…" Phil stammered, holding back tears, "if…"

Silence fell for a brief moment, and Keely asked, "If what?"

"If… I had loved you…" he finished. "Every night, I would stay up, thinking about you. Thinking about what you were doing… thinking if you were happy with your new life… and I wondered, maybe if I had fallen in love with you. You ran through my mind every day for a long time… I don't remember exactly when it stopped… and it wasn't that I didn't care about you… maybe… maybe I was just admitting that you were gone. Maybe I was just admitting that you were out of my life for good… I'm not sure. And I wish I did. All I know is that I started to realize I had to move on. As much as I didn't want to admit it, you were a part of my past now, and… I couldn't live in the past- no pun intended. I felt as if maybe you may have even been holding me back from my life a bit; that's how much I thought about you. I started to think that I'd never get over you… that you'd always be at the back of my mind, eating away… I thought you would never leave my thoughts. And you know what? I was right… you never did leave my thoughts… you were always in my mind… though I did start to think of you less… And… I learned something… I learned that, yes, I _had _fallen in love with you…"

Another silence fell. Again, Keely broke it by asking, "What happened? Why?"

Phil remained silent for a while.

"I'm not sure… why it happened," he began heavily. "I just know _what _happened…"

_**I can't lie  
I can't tell you that I'm something I'm not  
No matter how I try  
I'll never be able to give you something  
Something that I just haven't got**_

"_Hey, Phil!" Owen called out, putting his hand over the phone, "there's a party tonight!"_

"_What about it?" Phil asked, looking up from the newspaper._

"_You want to go?"_

_Phil mulled it over for a minute, and replied, "Yeah, tell them I'll be there."_

"_Yeah," Owen said into the phone. "Okay, eight o'clock. Got it. Okay, bye." After he hung up, Owen shouted, "Party!"_

"_I gathered as much," Phil replied sarcastically._

"_And where there are parties, there are beautiful women," Owen said, smiling._

"_Are there any women anywhere who can stand the likes of you, though?" Phil asked._

_Owen faked a laugh. "Yeah, that's funny, Phil. That's hilarious."_

"_Isn't it?" Phil asked._

"_Come on, give the O-Dog a little credit, huh?"_

"_Yeah, yeah…"_

"_That's the spirit, man," Owen said. "Honestly, I'm a little surprised you're even going to the party…"_

"_Why's that?"_

"_Come on, dude, you've been down ever since Keely left… you seem to be a bit more normal recently, but you were even getting me down before…"_

"Why were you more normal recently?" Keely blurted out.

Phil hesitated for a second, then spoke. "It's… um…"

"Phil?"

"Just… I'll tell you a little later… now's not the time."

_Phil and Owen arrived at the party at 8:05, and stood by a wall for a short while. "See anyone to your liking, Owen?" Phil asked, half-sarcastic._

"_Actually…" Owen said, looking with great concentration at a girl across the room, "I think I do…"_

_Phil rolled his eyes. _Typical Owen,_ he thought. _

_And that's when he saw her. Maybe it was the asymmetrical burgundy dress, or maybe it was just that he hadn't seen her in over a year, but…she looked… _beautiful_ to him. More beautiful than he had remembered her ever being in his life. She saw him, and walked over to him._

"_Hello, Phil," she said, her sultry British accent playing in his ears like music._

"_Hey, Via," he returned, smiling. "How've you been?"_

"_I've been great," Via said, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. _

_The two sat down in a few chairs and continued to catch up._

Keely was staring vacantly ahead, and the expression on her face reminded Phil very strongly of when he told her he was from the future. A lot had changed since then…

"I had realized something after you left, Keely," Phil said. "I realized I had fallen in love with you… but… that night… talking to Via… I realized something else."

"What did you realize?" Keely squeaked out.

"I… I realized that I'd fallen out of love with you."

That did it. Keely broke down and let the tears flow.

"I know, it's terrible… and I didn't even know it was possible… but it became clear to me that I didn't love you anymore… at least, not romantically. I don't know how it happened, it just _did_. If I knew how it happened, I would tell you… but I don't…" He continued, as she continued to cry. He hardly even noticed. He seemed too wrapped up in his story to notice. "That night… one more thing came clear to me. And I don't know why this happened, either, but… I started to fall for Via that night… I know I shouldn't be telling you this… it's terrible… I… I should stop…"

"No," Keely sobbed, "keep going…"

Phil paused a moment, and sighed.

"_Do you want to dance?"_ _Phil asked Via, extending his hand out to her. She smiled warmly, and took his hand in hers. The two of them danced all night long together._

"It was a great night, really… It was the start of something… We started to go out…" Phil sighed. "I… I fell in love again. It was the best feeling I had in my life… I loved her. I actually loved her…"

"So… what happened?" Keely asked.

Phil sighed. He'd traveled this far… there was no point in stopping here.

A tear fell down his face, and he pressed on.

_**There is only one girl that I will ever love  
And that was so many years ago  
And though I know I'll never get her out of my heart  
She never loved me back, ooh I know  
Well I remember how she left me on a stormy night  
She kissed me and got out of our bed  
And though I pleaded and I begged her not to walk out that door  
She packed her bags and turned right away**_

"One night… we went out on a date… it was about a month into our relationship…"

_Phil and Via had been walking through the park under the moonlight. "It's a beautiful night sky," Via said, as she gazed at the sky._

"_Yeah," Phil said, his eyes aimed to the skies as well. "It really is…"_

_Via's smile faltered as she looked across the park at a small gang of teens who looked as if they were generally up to no good. Phil saw her expression, and suggested, "Want to go back to my place?"_

"_Oh, but won't Owen be home?"_

"_No, he's out of town…"_

"_Well, then I'd be delighted to," she said._

_When they arrived at his apartment, she sighed, and sat down on his couch. He sat down next to her._

"_You know, Via," Phil half-whispered, "I've been thinking about you a lot lately."_

"_You always say that," Via teased._

"_Well, I mean a lot, even for me…"_

"_What have you been thinking?"_

"_Basically… I've been thinking about everything. But… I think… I've figured something out… I'm not entirely sure how or why it happened… but it has. And I honestly couldn't be happier that it did. Via, the truth… is… that I love you."_

_Via maintained eye contact with Phil, but it only took Phil a few seconds to realize what had happened._

_**And she kept on telling me  
She kept on telling me  
She kept on telling me**_

"_Phil…" she started, "I… I'm not entirely sure how to say this…" She sighed, searching for words. "I… It's been great, being with you and all… it's just, that, the more I think about it… the more I start to second-guess myself. Can you understand that?"_

"_No," Phil mumbled. "…but I guess life doesn't really make sense, does it?"_

"_Listen… Phil…_

_**I want you  
I need you  
But there ain't no way I'm ever gonna love you  
Now don't be sad  
'Cause two out of three ain't bad  
Now don't be sad  
'Cause two out of three ain't bad**_

"And then she walked out," Phil finished simply. "At the end of that school year, she got transferred to another school, and I never saw her again."

Keely looked over to Phil. "I…"

"I'm sorry, Keely," he interrupted. "Love doesn't last forever… sometimes I wish it would… but it's just the sad truth. I don't expect you to understand… in fact, I hope and pray you never understand…"

"Phil, I--"

"I'm sorry, Keely… I wish I could tell you that everything is going to be okay… I can't. I just can't. I'm so sorry…"

"I love you, Phil…" Keely sobbed, looking into his chocolate eyes.

"I wish I could say the same…" Phil whispered. He took one last look at her, then stood up, and walked out the door.

_**Baby we can talk all night  
But that ain't getting us nowhere…

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**_

**I own nothing, by the way. Salerno is not a school in New Jersey, either. Anyway, feel free to drop a review off. It's fun.**


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